With the advent of television in the early ‘50s, many predicted that the movie industry would soon die off, as people would no longer wish to travel to a theatre and pay for entertainment when they could get it in their homes for free. Of course, we all know now that those dire predictions never even came close to being realized, but no one could ever have predicted the unusual synergy that eventually developed between the movies and television. And over time, the creative forces and the adaptations have moved more and more freely between the two mediums, so that now it is no longer that unusual to see a TV star doing movies, or a movie star doing a TV series, nor is it uncommon to have TV series based on movies or, increasingly, movies based on TV series.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, however, may be the first big-screen project based on a TV Movie-of-the-Week. This remake of a very effective and quite scary 1973 project from that original home of the Movie-of-the-Week, ABC, will tell the tale of a young affluent couple, Sally and Alex, who move into her family’s two-story, rather creepy Victorian mansion. Unhappy with the decor selected by her father, Sally hires an unctuous interior designer to help her renovate the place, including her father’s old study, which is inexplicably locked and for which Sally doesn’t seem to have a key. After brow-beating a handyman to unlock the door, and ignoring his warning that some doors are better left unopened, Sally and her insufferable decorator begin dismantling the bricked-up study fireplace, and as anyone who’s ever seen a horror film has probably already guessed, strange and unpleasant things begin to happen. Sally begins to see odd little creatures that no one else can see, causing everyone to believe the stress of the move and the renovation are causing her to have a nervous breakdown. But when Sally’s designer meets an untimely end, she’s convinced the death and other strange occurrences are the work of demons her father summoned, demons that seem to now want her.

ABC made several really, really good and very, very scary TV movies in the ‘70s, and Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark rates right up there with Trilogy of Terror as one of the best and most memorable. If the creative team adapting the tale for the big screen can capture the sense of foreboding and the creepy atmosphere that was a hallmark of the original, then Dimension Films will have a nice little spook movie on their hands, one that might be a good candidate for the Hallowe’en time frame. Since the film is still in the earliest stages of production, so no cast is yet attached, but as more information becomes available, we will be updating this page, so check back for more details as filming gets underway. (Stephanie Star Smith/BOP)